Art 3 final reflection

Over the past year in art 3 I've learned not only mechanical artistic skills but also how to think and plan as an artist. I've found each project and activity to be a unique challenge and experience which has introduced me to new ideas and ways of making art. Our first project, the artist copy and self portrait was the first time I worked on a large scale piece. Working on a large piece taught me how to plan big drawings and how to upscale images. Additionally, copying Sargent's drawing really improved my drawing skills and attention to detail. The sculpture project was both the most challenging project and one of the projects that I grew the most from.  Similarly to the artist copy project the sculpture project helped me grow even more in terms of planning. When planning for the sculpture I failed to consider how different creating something in 3d would be than just drawing. My failure to account for the difficulty of making a sculpture forced me to adapt, which taught me a valuable lesson about adapting and planning. Additionally working in 3d really expanded my artistic abilities, the sculpture project was the first time I'd ever made anything 3d that wasn't a little clay pot. Not only working bigger but working on something more complex helped me learn and expand my skills with sculpture. Though I learned lots from the previous projects, I learned the most by far from the Oil painting project. Doing the project wasn't my first time painting but I'd never been exposed to the processes that we used. Though in my paintings I prefer to paint more directly, learning how to do an underpainting and grisaille has been really influential in how I paint and use mediums. Additionally I learned alot about composition and color from the project, Ive always had an idea about what makes good colors and composition but Id never fully worked through it and applied it until then. In general the oil painting project taught me new processes, how to execute compositions and how to look at colors.

I think I've seen the greatest growth in my drawing ability. Reflecting on my art skill inventory Ive improved my ability to draw massively. Almost every aspect of my drawing has improved from the skill inventory. My proportions have improved, my line quality has improved and my ability to depict things realistically has improved lots too. Though I've improved in lots of areas I think my proportions improved the most as it's the thing I've been most focused on in terms of drawing.

I think the area I need to improve most is in my use of color. My ability to mix colors is fine but I have a hard time identifying what to actually mix. Additionally I find in some of my paintings I feel my color is bland but not in an interesting way. For the portrait of my dad I sought to use a Manet style pallet with lots of subtle colors but I don't feel that I executed that very well. Additionally I struggle with how the color of light affects color, both identifying and representing that relation.

I'm going to use the stuff I learned this year to create scenes representing modern life and the nuances of human relations with each other. I think the skill that's going to be most helpful to me is the things I learned about composition. Arguably one of the most important things in conveying emotion and feelings in a painting is the composition. I want to explore people's relationships using emotion in almost an existential way. I think all of the things I learned this year will be beneficial but the compositional stuff might be the most important.